The Navy will relax the body weight standards in its physical fitness assessment beginning next year, as it moves away from what service leaders say is too narrow a gauge of health and physical ability.

GALLERY

What started as a joke between Marines in a San Diego recovery room in the spring ended Sunday, more than 4,000 miles later in Virginia, as double amputee Toran Gaal hand-cranked his bike past the Marine Corps Memorial, through a row of American flags into the arms of his wife and children for the first time in two months.

Many Americans assumed the Confederate flag was retired for good after governors in South Carolina and Alabama removed it from their statehouses this summer and presidential candidates from both parties declared it too divisive for official display.

ANALYSIS

While the United States and its allies easily ejected Iraq from Kuwait within seven months of the Aug. 2, 1990, invasion, Bush's line in the sand has continued onward in an almost Biblical fashion, accompanied by plenty of pre-modern horrors.

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Russia’s ambitious plan to revamp its navy, highlighted last week in a visit by President Vladimir Putin to the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea, faces new hurdles in the form of economic sanctions imposed for Moscow’s interference in Ukraine.

Secretary of State John Kerry sought to patch up relations with Egypt’s leaders Sunday in a visit preceded by the delivery of U.S.-made fighter jets delayed by the 2013 military-backed ouster of the country’s elected Islamic president.

The brother of the late figurehead of the Afghan Taliban on Sunday joined a growing challenge to the extremist group's newly appointed leader, even as it offered a statement purportedly quoting a well-known militant supporting him.

Dozens leave every week to go back to Syria, saying it's better to risk death than live in limbo in a camp where jobs are few, a third of children don't attend school and thousands of young adults lack the chance to learn a trade.

A Russian military helicopter from an elite aerobatic squadron crashed Sunday during an air show, killing one pilot and injuring another, the Defense Ministry said, the latest in a series of accidents that have dogged the nation's air force this year.

The migrants, estimated to number around 200 by an Associated Press journalist, faced off for close to an hour with security forces, chanting slogans including: "Open the border" and "We are not animals."

Fifty-one years ago, an American president deceived the public about the true purpose of a U.S. military mission, ushering in a decade of foreign policy disasters. Unfortunately, this method of abusing democracy has continued, on a bipartisan basis, to the present day, when it is casting a shadow over U.S. policy in Syria.